Paul Waugh

First, I want to put on the record my anger and frustration, shared by many in this House, at the collapse of this case, particularly the dropping of the spying charges against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry and the resulting collapse of their trial, which had been due to go ahead this very month. Secondly, I welcome Mr Speaker’s guidance on how to improve Members’ security. Members must not forget that we have a personal responsibility too to protect ourselves, our fellow Members and our staff from such foreign interference, which includes in our hiring practices and vetting of staff who can work in this building, which has not been often mentioned in this debate. However, I want mainly to warn of the danger of some of the rhetoric that has been used to date in this case. Of course, it is the job of His Majesty’s Opposition to probe, challenge and scrutinise the Government, yet what has happened in this case goes way beyond that and risks harming us all, just as spying on our Parliament harms us all. I am talking about the repeated unsubstantiated and scurrilous suggestions that any Minister or special adviser in this Government interfered or intervened in the independent decision making of the CPS. In an article in The Times on 15 October, the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), accused the Government of deliberately choosing to collapse the case: “It is clear the government chose to deliberately submit inadequate evidence that led to two alleged spies getting off scot-free.” He went on: “They must now also explain who was guiding Matt Collins in preparing this evidence.” That is an appalling accusation to make with zero evidence and an insult to the professional integrity of the deputy National Security Adviser, and I hope the shadow Home Secretary withdraws it. Sadly, he was not alone. On 13 October, the Leader of the Opposition told the BBC: “This looks like a deliberate decision to collapse the case and curry favour with the regime in China.” She went on to say that she suspected that Ministers “have decided that closer economic ties with China were more important than due process and our national security.” Just look at those words: “looks like” and “suspect”. There is not a shred of evidence, only insinuation. That is not the language of a Prime Minister in waiting. As the Security Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley North (Dan Jarvis), has made clear, it was an entirely independent decision by the CPS to discontinue the case, and the CPS has confirmed that it came under no outside pressure to do so. As for the Whitehall meeting on 1 September referenced by the Opposition in their motion, crucially, Mr Collins said yesterday that there had been “at least four lawyers in the room who ensured that there was no discussion about the evidence” in the case. This House has maintained a proud cross-party consensus on Ukraine, helping President Zelensky to stand up to Putin—a consensus that is, sadly, not helped at times by Reform, whose Putin apologists are indeed Moscow’s useful idiots of the 21st century. We need to maintain a similar cross-party consensus in fighting against Chinese threats.